Me, a couple of hours ago:

Is it possible to take what I’ve described and actually make it fun and challenging? Or, will the right path (or a right path) always be obvious at a glance?

Now that I’ve thought about it some more, I think part of the answer here is: the player shouldn’t be the only entity moving across the board. There should be NPC’s representing social interactions that the player may want to encounter (that add spoons) and others that the player will want to avoid (that take away spoons). They should move in predictable patterns, and the player’s challenge becomes:

  • observe and understand the NPC’s movement patterns
  • figure that into their plan for traversing the board, along with destinations to reach, routes to take, and turns available.

That sounds more like a puzzle.